HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

[joneall]

After upgrading to Natty, any attempt to look at "Hardware Drivefs" gave the message that the NVidia driver was "activated but not currently in use". After looking at numerous other complaints about this, it seemed reasonable to me to tell it to remove the driver -- after all, it was not being used. So I did. Then, after a reboot, all I see after the Grub screen is a blue screen with black lines across the top half.

I hope this can be corrected from a boot disk, which I will now download. I would hate to have to install from scratch because of all the c**p which has to be installed manually afterwards, especially all the Firefox plugins and addons.

HELP, please.

[dibl]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

I have not personally seen that issue, but others have. This may or may not be too late for you: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1433955

[dibl]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

Also, this may be helpful: https://wiki.edubuntu.org/X/Troubles...riverSwitching

[joneall]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

I booted another system and mounted the disk for the pb system. Looking in /var/log/Xorg.0.log, as you suggested, I found a line

[ 22.495] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)

After trying in vain to reboot the system after editing xorg.conf to use vesa, as well as trying org.conf.failsafe, I abondonned hope and reinstalled the system.

But that's not all. After a complete installation, I opened "Additional drivers" in "System settings" and chose to download and install the Nvidia driver. After a looooooong download, I was told to reboot, which I did.

And now I am exactly back where I was hours ago: "This driver ius activated but not currently in use." Pardon my french, but what the hell does that mean? I certainly don't want to repeat destroying the system like I did earlier.

What is going on? And what to do?

[joneall]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

This is weird. It seems like the driver is installed and in use, because "Nvidia Xserver settings" works and the desktop effects work. It is just that "Additional drivers" still says the "driver is activated but not currently in use." But xorg.conf contains only

Section "Device"
Identifier "Default Device"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection


I think it is urgent for me to do nothing.

[bailout]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

If desktop effects are working then I would assume that it is probably just a bug in the 'additional drivers' package and ignore it. I have just checked mine and it says the same thing.

There is a bug in the nvidia drivers in the repos that affects resizing windows in kde, especially konsole. If you get problems with that there is a beta driver that fixes the problem in a ppa. See my post here

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...5557#msg265557

[doctordruidphd]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

My suggestion is: don't use the gui driver installer for this. Do it from the shell, without x running. Since you have already done a reinstall, reinstall gain. Don't mess with jockey or the system settings installer. Try doing it this way:

1. Get to the console and stop the X server.

CTRL-ALT-F1
sudo service kdm stop

2. Add the ubuntu x-swat repository. This will give you the most recent stable nvidia driver.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

This process should pull in some additional packages needed to set up the drivers. If it doesn't, and you get errors during the driver setup, then you will also need to install some additional packages:

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
sudo apt-get install --reinstall nvidia-current

3. If you don't have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, generate a basic one:

sudo nvidia-xconfig

4. If, during (2) above, it didn't regenerate initramfs, then manually do this. You must do this to remove the nouveau driver, that is installed by default.

sudo update-initramfs -u

5. Now reboot, and see if this gives you a functional system.

Edit: Corrected spelling build-essentials > build-essential (thanks dibl)

[oshunluvr]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

My 2p: The usual reason the nvidia driver is reported as "installed but not active" is the lack of linux-headers for the installed kernel.

Why the headers aren't automatically installed as a required dependency is beyond me.

[joneall]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

My 2p: The usual reason the nvidia driver is reported as "installed but not active" is the lack of linux-headers for the installed kernel.

Why the headers aren't automatically installed as a required dependency is beyond me.

Does that mean I could just install the headers? If so, which ones. Would that be the command suggested by doctordruidphd?

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

It's worth a try, it seems to me.

[dibl]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

Yes, that's correct. Also better do

sudo apt-get install build-essential

But, I dunno how to get a "do over" with jockey-kde. You might still have to go to the terminal and install nvidia-glx or nvidia-current or whatever the package name is today.

[oshunluvr]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

As long as the DKMS service is running, it will detect the headers being installed and update the kernel drivers. Just type dkms status in a terminal to check it.

[joneall]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

I did the 2 installs oshunluvr suggested. Both gave

build-essential is already the newest version.
build-essential set to manually installed.

The result of dkms status, both before and after these installations, was

nvidia-current, 270.41.06, 2.6.38-8-generic, x86_64: installed

When I get some time, I will re-install my other system in the same way and try oshunlovr's complete suggestion.

Thanks for all your help.

[oshunluvr]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

There seems to be some confusion. I stated that the kernel headers needed to be installed. I don't see in your post you did that.

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

is the command that does this.

[joneall]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

That was one of the 2 install osuhunlovr suggested and which I mentioned in my last post. So they are done.

[joneall]

Re: HELP: Unable to boot after NVidia driver "activated but not currently in use"

I meant dibl, you are oshunlovr. Sorry.